Blogs with content

April 3rd, 2006 § 0 comments

I’d like to point you all towards a few blogs with real content, written by people who know what they’re talking about. I’m biased about all three: I’m a contributor to the first (and member of the group running it), I was taught by the author of the second, and the driving force behind the third is a close friend who I spent a year sharing a house with. Despite that, they’re all great!
First, the [Iraq Analysis Group](http://www.iraqanalysis.org/) have just launched their new [blog](http://www.iraqanalysis.org/blog/). This is one of the most awesome groups of people I’ve ever worked with. They’ve been campaigning and thinking about Iraq since the 1990s, first as the [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq](http://www.iraqanalysis.org/blog/), and then as this group after sanctions were lifted. They (OK, we) have accumulated a large [collection of resources to learn about Iraq](http://www.iraqanalysis.org/info/). It isn’t yet comprehensive, but it’s probably the best listing of it’s kind on the web. I strongly recommend this site: of the project I’ve been involved in, this is one of the few that I believe in 100%, and I’m continually impressed by all the people involved.
Then there’s [sarasvatam cakshuh](http://sarasvatam.blogspot.com/), a blog about Sanskrit written by Somadevah Vasudeva. The focus is on primary texts, so this probably won’t be your thing unless you read Sanskrit. That that doesn’t stop me squeeing about it, I’m afraid. There’s a good amount of [snarkiness](http://sarasvatam.blogspot.com/2006/03/skmadhynam-part-1.html) aimed at people who write about Sanskrit based on translations and small selections of original texts. Totally justified snarkiness: Somadevah is one of the few who has read immense amounts of Sanskrit literature. Some of it he’s committed to memory, and the rest is stored on his Mac, with copious annotations and some weird geek-fu that lets him instantly find any reference. Reading this blog makes me very aware of how little I know, but it also spurs me on to look at more Sanskrit texts.
Finally, another [blog](http://armstrade.blogspot.com/) on the borderline between research and campaigning. This one is from the [Campaign Against the Arms Trade](http://www.caat.org.uk/), which has been pluggin away at its issue for some 30 years, has kept going through thick and thin, and has a great body of expertise on the basty bits of British foreign policy and corporate nastiness. As with anything focussed on content rather than memes, this might be heavy going if you don’t care about the issues.

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